Introduction Best Wp Themes 2016

Within the past ten years, I have used a lot of different WordPress topics and have been very disappointed. Up until recently, I was using MyThemeShop, that was pretty good. However, I still had to do a lot of customization to allow it to perform and operate the way I needed it to. A few of weeks ago I decided to give GeneratePress a try, and let me just say, it’s by far the best WordPress theme I have discovered in 10 years. I had been dismissed and am moving all of my websites to GeneratePress. I will enter exactly why in my in-depth GeneratePress review below. And if you’re wondering, yes I have tried Genesis, Astra, OceanWP, Avada, X theme, Divi as well as many other lightweight and thicker multicolored themes. Best Wp Themes 2016

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

GeneratePress Review

GeneratePress is a totally free WordPress theme created by Tom Usborne, a developer from Canada. I’ve really seen it for years from the WordPress repository. Most of you realize that I’m pretty picky when it comes to web performance, and so I tend to ignore everything in the repository. Typically because a lot of things on there is not that great, or not supported for long. However, in this case, that was a mistake. The motif now has over half a million downloads, 80,000+ busy installs, with over 500 5-star ratings. So obviously Tom is doing some thing right here.

I Actually set up the free version of the motif and in a matter of 15 minutes purchased the premium version. I could tell right off the bat, the developer was thinking precisely how I was imagining a theme should work. And I’ll go into that more below, but let us first look at a number of the features. I’m going to be covering the superior edition of the subject, because it’s worth very penny. In fact, Tom, in the event that you ever read this and are visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, coffees on me.

Features

Super lightweight and quick. Modular design allowing you to enable/disable items you don’t want running. This is one of the greatest reasons I love GeneratePress.

Responsive, looks fantastic across all devices.

Schema built-in, for better outcomes in SERPs.

Dramatic integration using all the WordPress Customizer. I have not been a fan of this customizer previously, but Tom does it right.

Compatible with popular plugins, Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML. Fantastic browser service back to IE8.

It also works great with the popular fast-growing Elementor page builder. If you want to dive into even more customizations, these really are a great combo. I have also read that individuals using Beaver Builder have had success.

Resumes prepared.

Font wonderful built-in.

Tons of hooks and filters that make it good for developers.

Excellent active service from the developer. Normally, 3 updates per month.

The Documentation can be unbelievable. Besides have good documentation on their website, the theme has been around long enough that everything I Googled throughout the setup procedure was found within a couple of seconds from their own forum.

Going Deep Into GeneratePress

Now it’s Time for the fun part! I test a new theme right out of the box with no customizations to just see how quickly the foundation is. This tells me a great deal of what I could expect by the time that I add everything for this. Running the inventory GeneratePress WordPress theme on Kinsta hosting clocked in at a whopping 265 ms loading time. I was quite impressed.

One Thing I was concerned about with GeneratePress was that the modular layout was going to generate a lot of big files, but this is not the case. You can tell that Tom literally worked hard on ensuring that every record packed in GeneratePress is as small as possible. With HTTP/2, the number of documents isn’t as significant. However, the size is! Take a look at some of the center GeneratePress files below:

/generatepress/css/unsemantic-grid. min.css 2.9 KB

/generatepress/style. css 7.1 KB

/generatepress/css/mobile. min.css 1.6 KB

/generatepress/js/navigation. min.js 1.1 KB

/generatepress/js/dropdown. min.js 1.5 KB

This is a programmer that cares about functionality! And I have Seen the same throughout all the premium add-ons. They’re literally as small as possible get them. In fact, Font Awesome is probably the biggest file included. And that isn’t even his. With Font Awesome 5 arriving around the cornerwe could anticipate that to get smaller also.

The premium add-ons Are installation in what I would call a modular layout. It is possible to activate/deactivate whatever you are not using to ensure they do not load on your website. Since the co-developer of this perfmatters plugin that has a script supervisor built-in, I felt at home for this. Everything should be designed this way.

If You are curious, I am using the next add-ons on this site:

Website

Colors

Copyright

Hooks

Page Header

Spacing

Typography

No Child Theme Needed

One of The best characteristics of GeneratePress is that I no longer need to use a Child motif . This makes my life so much simpler. No more editing my functions.php or header.php files. I will literally upgrade my GeneratePress theme this exact minute and not shed one customization. The hooks add-on definitely can help make this possible. It permits you to incorporate custom code/PHP everywhere throughout your WordPress website. Best Wp Themes 2016

Other Things I Love About GeneratePress

On every Page/post that you have a great deal of alternatives. You can change the sidebar layout and the footer widgets.

You Can easily swap a page involving the default to a full width page, in addition to disable components.

The WordPress customizer choices is where GeneratePress really shines! Remember, a lot of these choices are permitted from the premium add-ons. I can’t show you everything, otherwise, we would be here all day. However, let me show you few which actually come in handy.

Responsive Columns

Another Plugin I highly suggest grabbing is your free Lightweight Grid Columns. Not to my surprise, this is also made by the same developer as GeneratePress. It enables you a super easy way to add responsive columns into any page or post. Characteristics include:

Desktop grid width

Tablet grid thickness

Mobile grid width

Add custom courses

Add custom inline styles

Equal height columns

This is An example below:

You might want to Also catch his incredible WP Display Posts plugin too. View my featured articles on the sidebar of this site? That is using the WP Show Posts plugin. I have it set to show posts from a particular”featured” category. You might also get it show last modified/updated posts, recent articles, etc.. I’m using the free version and it works great.

To Begin, Click here to download GeneratePress.

Sections Add-on

The Sections add-on in the premium version of GeneratePress allows you to do all sorts of things in terms of design. Consider it like a page builder with no bloat. GeneratePress is certainly not only for blogs! I am in reality utilizing GeneratePress to our ecommerce website (perfmatters.io) which is operating Easy Digital Downloads. Feel free to look it over. But as you can see below, it looks nothing like a blog.

Speed Tests

For all those Of those who are regular readers, you probably didn’t even notice I changed the whole theme that powers woorkup.com. It only took me about an hour for GeneratePress to mimic my MyThemeShop theme that I had spent a year customizing. Here’s a comparison below.

woorkup.com Old MyThemeShop Theme

My older MyThemeShop motif was already pretty fast, but I invested a great deal of time scrutinizing it. In fact, I have gotten a lot of emails from you guys asking me to print all my customizations. My advice today is, just get GeneratePress!

woorkup.com New GeneratePress Theme

Together with the New GeneratePress motif I was able to attain faster speeds and 600 fewer lines of code! And remember, I do not have a child motif. Each of the customizations were created using the awesome GP hooks and snippets plugin (both CSS and PHP).

Like the WordPress theme I’ve working on woorkup? You’re in luck. Tom asked if he can make a copy of woorkup for the brand new GeneratePress site library. I am pleased to let you know that now you can install my woorkup motif on your own GeneratePress site with just a single click! It is known as the Marketer theme. Get started with a great blog layout immediately.

brianjackson.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

I also Moved within my personal website, brianjackson.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a theme from Array Themes. It’s a pretty basic minimum website, since I don’t use it for much. As you can see it loaded pretty quickly.

brianjackson.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to duplicate the entire look 100% in GeneratePress in under an hour. And since you can see it loads faster! Amazing. I was even able to eliminate a few plugins that weren’t needed because of GP.

forgemedia.io Old Array Theme’s Theme

Additionally, I Moved over our organization website, forgemedia.io, to GeneratePress. Previously I was using a motif from Array Themes. It is a pretty basic minimum website, as we just use it for our LLC. Since you can see it loaded pretty fast. Best Wp Themes 2016

forgemedia.io New GeneratePress Theme

I had been Able to move everything over and get it looking exactly how I wanted it in under an hour. And as you can view it loads even faster! Amazing. I was able to eliminate a total of four plugins and it dropped my total page burden 2x!

I can’t express my Excitement about finding GeneratePress and I am moving over all my sites to it (which comprises several EDD e-commerce sites). Once I have my 9 websites all running in GP without any child themes, my entire life will be a breeze! The developer has revived my faith in multi-purpose themes, and that when done the right way, can actually perform faster.

And The best news isI now have a thousand more choices to choose from than I did before.

What GeneratePress Is Good For…

GeneratePress Is the perfect alternative for performance-focused users that wish to have the ability to customize and control exactly how their site looks.

You Can make GeneratePress perform pretty much anything. And since GeneratePress has a focus on performance, the website that you build will have a great foundation to make it load quickly.

Since Of that, people who assemble WordPress sites for a living love GeneratePress. They’ll typically pair it with a WordPress site builder and use it for literally any kind of site.

However GeneratePress Might Not Be A Fantastic Fit If…

…you Need something that will immediately look perfect from the box.

For Example, if you realize you wish to produce a style blog, you might be happier picking out a niche theme that is developed exclusively for trend bloggers.

While GeneratePress is becoming a great deal simpler to use, as a result of its pre-built Site Library, GeneratePress still looks very barebones if you first install it.

So To make GeneratePress look how you would like it to, you’ll almost certainly will need to go in and personalize things. And though the substantial advantage of GeneratePress is how customizable it is, many users, particularly casual users, don’t like having to make those changes .

GeneratePress Features Which Make It Unique

Here Are a few of the specific characteristics that explain why GeneratePress is so popular.

Lots Of Customization Options From The Real-Time WordPress Customizer

Beyond Functionality, another place where GeneratePress does nicely is its customization options.

GeneratePress Utilizes the WordPress Customizer for customization, which is convenient because you will have the ability to see all of the changes that you create in real time.

The Free variant of GeneratePress provides you adequate possibilities, but if you have GeneratePress Premium, you’ll have the ability to customize nearly everything about your website.

For Example, if you go in the Layout region, you may configure detailed settings to yourown:

• Header — you can move your header around and alter its own styling
• Navigation — GeneratePress gives you two different navigation options, such as sticky menus
• Sidebar layout — you can use a Couple of sidebars
• Blog post design — such as featured picture size, metadata, etc..
• Footer layout — just like how many widgets to include

Likewise, That the Typography place lets you control the font for each and every element on your website, including buttons:

And You also receive a detailed area to control the colour of each and every element on your site.

All Whatsoever, GeneratePress will provide you much more customization options in the WordPress Customizer than most other topics. This level of detail might be a bit overwhelming if you’re a beginner. But once you understand how the settings come together, you will have full control on how your website appears.

Optimized Performance And Fast Page Load Times

Around All its features, GeneratePress consistently includes a focus on excellent performance and tidy code. The entire theme is less than 30 kB, which will be about as small as you’ll ever find for a WordPress theme. Even most other optimized WordPress themes are still 200+ kB. And some badly coded topics can even exceed 1 MB!

GeneratePress Also does not have any code dependencies, which will help you avoid the leave blocking error that Google Pagespeed Insights often cites.

Put That together, and you obtain a superfast-loading theme. How fast? To give you an idea, I ran a little test.

First, I set up a vacant site utilizing a random popular WordPress.org motif (Envo Magazine). After testing its performance with Pingdom, it

• Had a performance tier of 77
• Loaded in 1.05 moments
• Had a page size of 243.9 kB
• Had 15 asks

That’s Not bad at all! But GeneratePress can perform.

Next, I triggered GeneratePress on the same test site without changing anything else. Here is how GeneratePress failed:

• Had a performance grade of 87, 10 points greater
• Loaded in 666 ms, ~37% faster
• Had a page size of 26.8 kB, ~90% smaller
• Had 9 asks, ~40% less

If You do that same test with other themes, you’ll continue to see that GeneratePress is one of the fastest-loading WordPress topics in existence. Best Wp Themes 2016

Other Useful Premium Extensions, Plus Much Modular Approach

Past Giving you more style controls from the WordPress Customizer, GeneratePress Premium also comes with a lot of other helpful features like:

• Elements — a exceptional feature that allows you create customized hooks, page headers, or layout templates.
• Page Header — allows you create a exceptional page header onto a per-page basis.
• Sections — that is sort of like lightweight page building. It permits you to create different”sections” on a webpage, each with their own design and column preferences.

To Remain lightweight, GeneratePress also provides you a modular port where you can select and choose what characteristics you want to activate.

That Way, you do not have to slow down your site for a feature which you’re never going to use.

Pre-Made Starter Sites Make It Easier To Design Your Website

In The last, you had to construct GeneratePress websites from a blank canvas regardless of what, which left the motif difficult for casual users to set up.

Earlier In 2018, however, the developer added a fresh Site Library attribute for GeneratePress Premium users which lets you easily import any one of those 25+ pre-built demo sites.

You Can import them right from the WordPress dashboard.

Yes — this Website still uses GeneratePress! All I did was click on a couple buttons to import a demo site.

Page-Level Settings Give You Detailed Control Over Each Piece Of Content

With Most themes, every page and post will use the very same settings for the most part. You may have some custom templates or formats — but you do not have very much control beyond that.

GeneratePress Changes that by providing you a brand new Design meta box for each and every post and page:

You Can use this meta box to:

• Change how many sidebars your site uses, or the sidebar orientation (like altering the sidebar from right to left)
• Choose the number of footer widgets to utilize
• Disable certain elements, like your header, navigation menu, post featured image, post title, or footer
• Produce a special”container” to your page builder

Where These controls are the most helpful is if you are using a WordPress page builder.

By Disabling certain components, you’re able to create the proper baseline for your page builder design, which makes it easy to create custom articles as needed. Best Wp Themes 2016

GeneratePress Pricing: Cheap And Works On Unlimited Sites

The Core GeneratePress theme is available for free at WordPress.org.

Nevertheless, If you’re serious about using GeneratePress, I feel you need to purchase the GeneratePress Premium plugin, as that is what produces the theme so elastic. The free version does not give you almost as many configurations in the WordPress Customizer. And you’ll also miss out on the premade Site Library.

GeneratePress Premium is also still quite affordable. It costs only $39.95, which provides you use on unlimited websites . You’ll also get a 40% discount if you want to renew to continue receiving support and upgrades after the initial year (you can, obviously, continue using GeneratePress after the initial year without renewing — you won’t get any more updates).

When You believe the normal premium WordPress theme will often cost around $60, GeneratePress provides a fantastic value.

Wrap-up

As I mentioned, I do not think GeneratePress is for everyone.

If You want a niche-specific theme, you can probably save time by purchasing a theme that fits your requirements for your niche out of day one.

But If you are ready to spend some time altering preferences, then GeneratePress’ style controls give you the flexibility to turn it into any type of WordPress website. Or, you may even be able to find a starter site that fulfills your needs to save a little time.

Additionally, It’s among the fastest-loading WordPress themes you will find. So if you’re seeking the best performance possible, using GeneratePress as your WordPress site’s base is a great choice.

If You blend it with fast-loading hosting, so you shouldn’t have any problem making your site load in under one minute. Best Wp Themes 2016

To Get started, Click here to download GeneratePress.